Darkest Before the Dawn
by LordAnarchy666
Summary: One last desperate gambit lands Harry in the past, to change the whole course of history - for the better. There's no turning back on the path Harry has taken, no second chances. Dark!Harry, vampire!Harry, time travel. 4th place in May DLP challenge.


"Please, Harry," the ancient wizard begged, "Please, can you forgive an old man for what I'm about to do?"

Looking down at the weakened man in front of him, Harry sneered at what had become of him. So frail, so weak, so… old. Time had taken its toll on Albus Dumbledore. He should be so lucky to face a natural death... Harry wished he could say the same.

"And what's that?" Harry asked cautiously. He held no love for the man, but he respected the man's power, or rather, he used to. Dumbledore had been a mentor of sorts before age had taken its toll.

"My mistakes… They are much graver than you can imagine. I had… I had thought that if…"

"Is this about the Dark Lord?" Harry asked, not wanting to play Dumbledore's word games.

"Yes, and no," The dying man said slowly. "None of this would have happened, if only I could have looked beyond my own selfish ideals."

"And if you didn't try to make every truly evil person show remorse and regret for their actions."

"There is that too, yes, but it was an old man's hope. I always try to see the best in people, you'd understand that if you ever became a parent or a teacher," Dumbledore said with a cough. "Tom… he needs to die. There is no other choice."

"Yes, we've been trying for sixty years," said Harry with a bored tone. It was a shame to see such a mind ruined by the ravages of time.

"You don't understand. _He must die!_ If he doesn't… If he doesn't… he will live forever, while our cause will not."

"And pray tell me, what do you have in mind that we have not already tried?"

"You must go to the source," replied Dumbledore. His answer was as cryptic as anyone would expect of the man.

"The source? What source?" Harry asked hesitantly, wary of what crazy idea Dumbledore had come up with this time.

"Before he… no, before _they_ came to power."

"They? Who exactly are we talking about?"

"Listen closely, Harry, for I do not have much strength left," Dumbledore said with a lecturing tone, as if Harry was still his pupil. "Tom Riddle graduated in 1944, as you very well know. And there was a war going on during that time, surely you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes…" Harry said slowly. "I'm not sure if I'm following."

"You must… stop it before it begins," said Dumbledore, getting weaker by the second.

"What does Grindelwald's reign have to do with Voldemort's?"

"Everything," Dumbledore replied quickly with strength belying his condition. "Everything. Tom cannot be allowed to create his Horcruxes, and Grindelwald cannot be allowed to kill so many of us. Tom will not settle for England alone, he will take the world. Once England falls, the rest will be easy. The magical population is still recovering from that war, one hundred years ago."

"Grindelwald's long dead, you killed him yourself, and Riddle's Horcruxes have been created and hidden for years. You know this."

Dumbledore didn't say anything, but instead dug in his pocket for a second. Slowly, he pulled out a small golden chain, and attached to that chain was a small hourglass.

"You can't be serious!" Harry yelped.

"No, that was you tragically dead godfather," Dumbledore deadpanned, before giving a wheezing cough.

"You can't expect me to _time travel!_ We're talking in years here; time-turners can't go back that far."

"It is our only hope. Tom won this war years ago; we just haven't realized it yet. This time turner just requires a… catalyst, and a sacrifice." Dumbledore pulled out another item from his pocket; a vial containing blood. He handed it to Harry with what little remained of his strength. "You will have to drink some of it. The rest, as we say, is history."

"You want me to drink blood?" Harry asked curiously. "Is that it?"

"The only magic powerful enough to transverse time is blood magic, as you very well know," Dumbledore said. Harry nodded - he was knowledgeable in that particular forbidden branch of magic, and many others. Purely out of necessity, of course, that's how Dumbledore justified it, but it was in Harry's nature.

"Whose blood is this? Yours?"

"No, but you will need mine as well. That is the blood of Fawkes."

"Phoenix blood?" Harry asked in astonishment. He always wondered what it would taste like, and how it would affect his condition. Attaining phoenix blood should be impossible, but Dumbledore was Dumbledore after all.

"Freely given, of course. While phoenixes are immune to the ravages of time, they cannot heal the damage of it." Pulling a platinum dagger out of his robes before Harry could respond, Dumbledore sliced his own wrist with no drama and minimal pain. "Hurry now, drink while these veins still hold some of my legacy. For without our blood, who are we?"

Harry controlled himself, but his fangs lengthened by themselves at the site of his mentor's blood. Getting down onto his knees, he clamped down on the ancient wizard's wrist and drank. The heartbeat was very weak, and Harry knew Dumbledore wouldn't survive the hour. But it wouldn't matter if the crazy plan worked.

"Harry…" the old man said weakly. "Seven turns will do it. You know the magic that will do the rest. Once you accomplish your task, you may find the other answers you seek as well. They exist, I just never found them."

Harry ripped off the top of the vial containing the phoenix blood and took a sip of it. The taste wasn't as he expected. It was vile and repulsive, as was all animal blood, but the nature of the creature rebelled against his own. Still, he swallowed it with no regret. Drinking an immortal's blood was not an everyday thing. He delicately wrapped the golden chain of the time-turner around his neck, thanking Cain for the small favors that it wasn't silver.

Pouring the remaining phoenix blood onto the hourglass, Harry watched as the metal absorbed the blood, clearly a magical interaction. Some of his own blood could be helpful as well, so he opened up a small wound on his wrist and added a few drops to mix with the phoenix blood. It wasn't technically his own blood, but a conglomeration of many peoples, most recently Dumbledore's. Harry gently tapped the glass, not wanting to break it. The hourglass spun seven times before coming to a halt, just in time to see the great Albus Dumbledore finally die at the tender age of 216.

A clock on the wall read 12:00. The significance of the Witching Hour was not lost upon Harry as the world warped around him. Dumbledore's death bed was replaced with a storage room, with boxes and shelves lining one wall, and unused chairs filling the rest of the room. The hospital was not such over a hundred years ago. Harry waited a minute for the dementia he knew was coming, before moving.

Fuzzy memories plagued Harry's mind. They were not his own; they were Dumbledore's. They were nearly incoherent as Dumbledore was much older than him, and Dumbledore had so many that they were a blur. He would need years to sort the mess out, and there wasn't anything specific he needed from them. The memories weren't as such anyways, it wasn't like watching a video, it was more like feelings, emotions, and words, and a pain in the ass in most cases.

This was one of those cases.

Dumbledore had done so much, and seen so much, that his biography could not fit in ten thousand pages, and any memories could take months to decipher, if ever. Pretty much worthless in his current situation. It was one of the reasons why his affliction was colloquially called a curse. He would be forced to suffer through memories every time blood touched his lips, a reminder of everything he has lost.

As he stood for a minute, collecting himself, the vampire could have sworn he heard a faint voice echoing through his mind. _"I never did kill Grindelwald…"_

It meant nothing to him, perhaps an echo of the past, or maybe even Dumbledore's last thoughts latched onto him. That would be more than a little weird, but considering the message, a possibility. If that were the case, it only opened up more questions to which he would never get the answer to.

Apparating out of the storage room, and into Diagon Alley, Harry sought the shelter of familiarity. The storm clouds over head looked menacing, but Harry invited them. He loved the night, and rain didn't bother him at all. He was a child of the dark after all. On nights like this, he truly felt _alive_.

The Alley had not changed much from the first time he went as a child, despite it being some fifty years earlier. Eeylop's was the same, as was Ollivander's, Gringotts', and the apothecary. Many of the shops were closing up for the night, but there were still people mingling about, talking mostly in small groups. The Alley brought back fond memories of his childhood, but those cheerful times did not last. Most of the stores did not survive into his adulthood.

Newspapers and other rubbish lay strewn upon the ground, telling a tale of recent history. Harry spotted a Daily Prophet lying on its lonesome, and picking it up, he began to skim. The date read October 20th, 1942, but the rest of the paper didn't give him much insight. It focused on both muggle and magical side of the war, but the bombing of London a year prior was still on everyone's minds, even the wizards. Grindelwald had not, and as far as Harry could remember, ever come to Britain.

Realization that Grindelwald and Voldemort were both alive at this very instant was chilling, even for someone like Harry. He knew Grindelwald never came to Britain for the same reason Dumbledore waited so long to confront him. They feared each other.

On the other hand, Grindelwald was one of the reasons why Hitler's campaign was so successful. Fear is a powerful tool. Fear is one of the reasons why no one dared to even utter the name Voldemort.

Harry had a lot of planning ahead of him. He needed to sneak into Hogwarts, and kill Tom Riddle, and that would not be easy. He also had to locate and assassinate Grindelwald, and that would not be easy either. Afterwards? Well, he would wait until after he accomplished his current task first.

First thing was first, and he had to take inventory of his situation. He had to know what he was working with, and figure out who to make the best of what he did have.

Harry was woefully unprepared, but that should be expected from such a spurious occasion. He'd been given no time to grab the majority of his weapons, and he didn't take to carrying them all around at all times. It just wasn't practical, even for a vampire.. He didn't have any firearms, even though that could be for the better. They would be conspicuous if anyone else saw them. And he wasn't even that good with a gun; it's just that his unbreathing nature allowed him to be very steady and quick when shooting.

Perhaps his biggest loss was that of his crossbow. A silent killer, but he couldn't see himself actually killing someone like Grindelwald with a crossbow bolt, magical or not. A crossbow may be cliché, but he had taken more lives with it than any gun.

He had his wand, and his sword, which was more than enough. He'd take his wand, yew and thestral hair, over a muggle firearm any day. It was much more lethal, and quicker too. He could draw his wand and cast a wordless banisher faster than a man could draw a gun and fire. His sword wasn't all that special. It is what it is, and it's a close quarters weapon, and was perfectly silent until the body thumped on the ground. Black carbon steel, and enchanted for sharpness and indestructibility… there was no need for poison when he could slice a man in half. It was very useful for destroying a man when his hands were not enough, and his wand, too much.

The Daily Prophet was tossed to the ground in disgust after he gathered all the pertinent information. It was no wonder that Harry loathed Dumbledore. Every second of his life seemed to have been planned by Dumbledore, even in death. But such is the world. The lives of the young are often controlled by those with the experience and power of age. Dumbledore always had the innate ability to make the best of every situation, at least for the larger perspective, and Harry becoming a vampire was just another obstacle to overcome and adapt too.

Of course, Harry was the perfect tool to go back on this time travelling adventure. He realized this as he observed the denizens of the Alley. His body was nearly indestructible, and if he died, so what, he was already dead. He was a parasite, and as long as he stayed true to his nature, he would be immune to the ravages of time. He was removed from the natural order, even if he somehow prevented himself from being born, the chance of a paradox was nearly nonexistent. It was almost ironic, that the one man trusted to save lives was the one man that was already dead, a man once nicknamed Boy-Who-Lived.

On the other hand, he was a killer. All dark creatures were. Werewolves have it easy compared to what he had to live with. Any moment, he could lose himself and kill for no reason, and it had happened before. The Thirst controlled his life, but for the moment, Dumbledore's blood would hold him over for a bit. He hated himself as much as he hated Dumbledore. Having to live day by day, hour by hour, was brutalizing for an immortal, and all paths led to Hell.

There was no point in prolonging his task, and a second later, he was in the streets of Hogsmede. As the preeminent wizarding village, it hadn't changed much since the 18th century. The roads were still dirt, and the houses, wood. Zonko's and Honeyduke's were still much the same on the outside, most likely being family run. One of the noticeable changes was that the Shrieking Shack seemed to just be another normal house, and not the vestiges of a werewolf's haunt.

Pulling his cloak closer to him to seem more inconspicuous, Harry kept walking through the town, while keeping all of his senses roving. Not many people were out at this time, but there were still some. The Three Broomsticks and the Hogshead were the same as he remembered them, and they seemed to be the only source of sound in the village.

The day, or rather, the night, was only half over, so Harry made his way into the Hogshead. There no better place to scope out for worldly information. News, rumors, gossip: There was nowhere better than a pub, and no better pub than the shady Hogshead. He needed to know the current social and political climate.

All heads in the pub swiveled to him when Harry quietly entered, but they went back to minding their own business when they saw he was dressed as inconspicuously as everyone else. He walked over to the bar and noticed that Aberforth Dumbledore was tending it. "What's yer drink?" the man asked.

"Banshee's Breath," Harry replied, planting a few Sickles on the bar. He made his way into a reclusive stool with his drink and got ready to _Listen_.

Harry didn't consume his drink, as he physically couldn't unless he wanted to be sick. It would have looked suspicious though, if he just walked in and sat down in a dark corner without ordering anything. Appearances are everything, and nobody knows that better than a vampire.

His senses didn't pick up anything out of the ordinary, at least as far as that particular pub went. There was a lot of drunken and raucous laughter from some of the more colorful patrons, and there was some shady dealings going on, including a pair of seventh years disguised at one of the corner tables.

Since his ears didn't hear anything out of the ordinary, he used one of his non-standard senses; Listening. Similar to legillimancy, it allowed him to peer inside peoples mind's and see what they were thinking, more literally and metaphysically with their senses. But, it wasn't wizarding magic, and skills like occlumency were not as effective against it.

Listening revealed the true nature of most people. On the surface, a person may seem nice, popular in the community, faithful to his wife, and have a successful career… But on the inside, the man is a psychopath who likes to cut people's hearts out and eat them.

There were a lot of people like that in the Hog's Head. Not cannibals, but shady folk. They all had deep, dark secrets that they never wanted to see the light of day. And it turned out one of them was loyal to Grindelwald, and more than few were sympathetic to his goal, which was surprising, but not entirely unexpected. Grindelwald's beliefs were similar to Voldemort's and they shared a similar target audience.

Harry couldn't glean any plans from the man's head because he wasn't actively thinking about them. The man was more worried about finding a lady friend for the night. But, he had a name, his contact; Aleksey Mirnalov.

Satisfied he had a potential lead to follow in the future, Harry vanished the contents of his glass and made his way out of the pub and into the night after another fifteen minutes. He estimated there was only three hours left before sunrise, and he did not think there was enough time to kill Tom Riddle.

Harry walked the streets of Hogsmede for about five minutes before he realized he was being followed. It was no fault of Harry's that it's hard to identify that a drunken man was a stalker - a stalker who was going to mug Harry.

Harry could hear the man's thoughts loud and clear. _We don't like no outsiders 'round here. I'm gonna teach this man a lesson._

A smile crossed Harry's lips. Walking purposefully down a dark alley, Harry hid himself amongst the shadows. The stalker stopped in front of the alley and casually tried to peer into the darkness, but he couldn't spot Harry.

Harry reached out of the shadows, grabbed the man by his arm, and pulled him into the alley. The man tried to cast a spell, but Harry broke his wand, then his forearm, and then his upper arm in under a second. A ripped throat ensured that no sound would be made.

Unable to resist the blood flowing down the man's neck, Harry's fangs elongated, and his pupils dilated until his eyes were nearly all black. Biting down onto the gushing wound, the vampire drank deeply, uncaring about draining the man completely dry.

The man's memories flowed into Harry, and he was mildly curious at who he was. He absorbed snippets of the man's life, from getting sorted in Hufflepuff, to getting married and having kids, losing his wife, losing his kids, and taken out his grief on everyone else.

Memories were a fickle thing, but everything Harry saw and felt told him that this man was just petty, and worthless to society, before and after his marriage. But seeing the memories of the man's family being murdered brought back bad memories of his own family's demise.

_A sharp pain flashed across Harry's face and he instantly knew the protective wards on his house had been destroyed. He did not even hesitate to apparate into the potentially dangerous situation. His wife and kids were at home, and if his extensive system of defensive magics was down, they were in imminent trouble._

_The soft pop of displaced air was the only sound of Harry's arrival at his home. His wand was a blur as he activated his second line of manual defenses, but one after one, none of them worked. Spell traps, transfiguration triggers, and runic webs all failed to deploy._

_It would take a very strong and skilled wizard to get past defenses, and there was only one man who could do it._

_Voldemort._

_But even he could not have overcome those protections so quick. The Dark Lord was very powerful, but Harry hoped that his protections taxed him enough to put them on even footing, because if anything happened to his wife and kids, Harry's wrath would be second to none._

_Not a single sound met Harry's ears as he tried to discern the intruder's location. There was no shouting, signs of running, or any spell flare. He couldn't tell if there was simply no sound, of if there was silencing magic in place. He couldn't feel anything, so he was thinking that the intruders were silent, which was by far the worse of the two options._

_He silently walked towards the entrance of his manor, keeping his eye on every shadow in every room he walked though. Harry couldn't even spare a second to contemplate how Voldemort had even found his house. It had remained hidden for over ten years, and his wife was the secret keeper. The idea that she could have betrayed him was non-existent. It was far more likely that Voldemort had discovered a way past a Fidelus charm. He had many years to come up with a way, and if anyone could do it, it was the Dark Lord._

_And that was terrifying. The Fidelus was not the only magic protecting his house, but it was by far the most powerful._

_But a second later it was clear that Voldemort didn't do it alone. Opening the front door of his manor and looked out onto his front lawn, Harry spotted his company. Standing not fifty feet away was Voldemort and at least three dozen Death Eaters._

_They had his wife and two kids._

_Harry froze, rooted to the spot, after seeing black-cloaked men holding wands up to his family's heads. Anger welled up within him, but he kept a cool head so as to not risk a Death Eater jumping the gun._

_Voldemort stepped forward, his face the only one not clad in a mask. His flat-nosed, serpentine face was a monument to the corruptive magic he has used to immortalize himself._

"_Harry Potter. How good of you to show up."_

"_Voldemort," Harry acknowledged. "I would invite you and your buddies in for tea, but I'm afraid my manor doesn't have enough room for all the egos."_

"_Ah, too bad. Luckily for us, I'm not here to exchange pleasantries and banter."_

"_Oh? What are you here for then?"_

"_I'm here to destroy your life. That's all."_

"_You've tried a dozen times to kill me, and you haven't managed it yet. What makes you think this time will be different?"_

"_Kill you? Oh no, I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to do so much worse."_

"_What –" Harry was cut off from Voldemort's ominous words when two hands clamped onto his wrists from behind, and snapped them both like twigs. Harry let out a brief scream before that was cut off as well from a very strong hand clamping down on his mouth._

_The man holding Harry was exceptionally strong, and he carried him in front of Voldemort._

"_Watch, Harry Potter, as I destroy everything you love. Death Eaters," Voldemort said, turning to his minions,"Burn it down."_

_Harry watched in horror as the Death Eaters pulled out their wands in conjunction. Gouts of flame poured out of the row of Death Eaters and splashed into his home. The fire protection magic failed quickly and the wood roof and walls combusted easily. Voldemort joined in with his own special brand of Fiendfyre._

"_Are you angry yet, Harry? Do you feel absolutely worthless? No? How about now?"_

_The Dark Lord pulled out an inconspicuous sack from within his robes, and held it upside down. Out rolled several severed heads; that of the entire Weasley family._

"_You fucking bastard!" Harry yelled through the hand on his mouth. "You fucking bastard!"_

"_Yes Harry! Tell me how you really feel!"_

"_I will kill you!"_

"_No, you won't. But we aren't done yet."_

_Another cloaked figure approached from behind the group of Death Eaters and stopped in front of Voldemort, giving a short bow._

"_Elizabeth, it's so nice to see you," said Voldemort, insincerely._

"_I can't say the same, but you know me, I love bloodshed."_

"_That you do. Please, do the honors."_

_Harry was nearly in a catatonic state, but this person, Elizabeth, was unfamiliar to him. This woman walked up to his family casually, and it looked like she was kissing his son's neck. She did this for nearly a minute, before pulling back her fist and smashing his head off. Skull fragments and brain matter splattered onto the grass, and no one dared to make a sound, except for Harry._

_Harry's furious shouts of anger were muffled by the presence of the strong hand still on his mouth, and he couldn't move a single inch. No matter how much he struggled, he couldn't move._

_And then, Elizabeth moved onto his daughter, Lily, named after Harry's mother. She met the same fate. Some of Lily's blood even splashed onto his face, much to his disbelief and Voldemort's amusement._

_But it was his wife, his sweet wife, the sparked something primal within him. Elizabeth snapped her neck, killing her instantly. No words were said. One second, she's living, one second she's not._

_Harry's magic reacted. Anger is a powerful catalyst for magic, and Harry was very angry. Beyond angry. The man holding him back exploded off him, literally, and Harry rushed at the woman. His injuries seemed inconsequential as he ran with all his might, wanting to pound her into the ground with his fists. _

_The woman merely quirked an eyebrow, and Harry felt his body go rigid. Elizabeth walked up to him, lips drawn up into a smile. It was then that Harry noticed the blood on the woman's face, with fangs, and he now knew what she was. Vampire._

_Elizabeth paced around him, bringing a delicate hand up to his cheek. "I don't pity you. You are a fine specimen. What you make of this gift is up to you."_

_And then she bit. It hurt like nothing else he could imagine. She was not gentle, not delicate, and she ripped right into his neck like a piece of meat. It was multitudes worse than the Cruciatus, and it would stay with him for eternity._

_Consciousness was fading from Harry quickly and he felt his heart weakening. But he heard Voldemort whisper in his ear. "I killed your family, and now you will have to exist for all of eternity knowing what I did. You will exist for only as long as I allow, and knowing for every second of your cursed life that you will never see your family again. Your kids will never go to Hogwarts. You will never become a grandparent. Your soul will never have peace."_

_Harry tasted blood on his lips and felt it seeping down his gullet. He could not tell if it was from his wounds or not, but he could not care. He was dead._

Harry's mind came back to the present time, still clutching onto the man who had stalked him. Those memories of his turning… they were still raw, even though they happened dozens of years ago. But there wasn't a single day that went by that he didn't curse Voldemort for doing this to him. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life than what he felt that day.

So he killed the stalker.

And it was easy, so very easy. Vampires are the top of the food chain, especially one with magic at his disposal. But, more often than not, just having the element of surprise was enough to take down most wizards with his bare hands. He crushed the man's skull with his hands and let the brain matter and bone fragments drip between his fingers. It was very undramatic.

Harry _loathed_ himself. He hated being a vampire, but he embraced his curse. He accepted what he was forcefully turned into, he used his powers to their fullest extent, but he had so much hate and anger, not just directed at Voldemort, but the majority of humanity. Being able to peer into people's thoughts and see their true nature has convinced him that humans are a disgusting race as a whole, yet he was the one labeled a monster.

Some of his anger was also directed at his maker, the vampire who turned him. Elizabeth was the only name he knew her as, until he finally managed to escape her. It was only after he escaped her clutches that he learned exactly who she was; the Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory, or simply the most notorious female serial killer to ever live.

Worst of all was that Voldemort knew that Harry wouldn't kill himself. He knew Harry would continue to fight. While Harry was stronger and faster than he was before, he was forced to fight two battles now, against both the Death Eaters and himself.

A guttural growl escaped from Harry's mouth as the pain of his past attempted to overwhelm him once more. But he crushed it back down and took a second to plan his next step. Emotions could be a powerful tool, but there is a place and time for everything, and now was neither.

Harry was going to kill Tom Riddle, that much was certain. The only question was when. He probably could sneak all the way into Tom's room and assassinate him while he slumbered, but he'd rather get him while he was awake. He wanted to fight him, to at least satiate part of his thirst for vengeance.

And that was easier said than done. The kid was only fifteen years old, but he was only months away from learning how to become immortal, and that spoke volumes.

The harsh reality of it that he was a vampire, the perfect tool for time travel, as he was immune to the ravages of time, had nothing to lose if he died, and had no one to miss him if he died. He had no strings attached to him. Tom Riddle may be searching for immortality, but Harry already had it.

There were drawbacks though. Nothing came without a price, and the price of his existence was very high. The sun was going to rise before Tom Riddle did, and any possible assassination attempt, so he had to settle down for the day.

Harry needed to find a light-tight place to 'sleep'. Magical or not, the light would fry him in just a few minutes. But, creating a safe place to sleep was a lot easier with magic. His safety was imperative. It would not do to have someone finding him while he was inanimate. A vampire's resting place is the most precious of secrets, and one does not give it away lightly.

He could have set up some enchantments on a random room in a random building, perhaps a muggle home with muggle repelling wards, but even that wasn't good enough. Harry preferred to be untraceable.

So he dug a hole in the ground, and buried himself.

No one would ever find him, and magic was useful enough to keep himself clean of the dirt afterwards. Undignified, maybe, but he did what he had to do.

Rising over the horizon, the morning sun's rays lit the world on fire, and Harry felt himself weaken considerably. It wasn't to the point of incapacitation, but it was very draining to stay conscious during this time. If he was in a completely light-tight building, it could be possible to operate during the day-time, but he would be weaker than a human. He could read or make a potion or something but not much more unless he had a nearby constant supply of blood to drink.

Instead, his stasis was nearly deathlike. It was much easier to sleep instead of fighting against nature. He really was a corpse buried in the ground during the daytime. His mind still functioned though, so he was busy planning. The stasis was important to a vampire. It wasn't just a restriction due to the curse. It was similar to a human's sleep. It was a period of rejuvenation and restoration.

And as much as sleep was important to a human, it was similarly important to a vampire. Coffee could only do so much for a human, and blood could only do so much for a vampire. If a vampire becomes unhinged enough through lack of blood, or lack of sleep, the risk of bloodraging was very possible. A vampire in the thralls of bloodlust was very dangerous, both to himself and everyone around him. Self preservation instincts disappeared, replaced by killing instincts, and that was no good for anyone. It was a fine line to walk, and one that Harry did his best to maintain. Even while he slept, he had to micromanage his thirst, and more than a few vampires go crazy over the years from it.

A vampire's existence was similar to that of a wizard's. They had safety in secrecy. The less people who knew, the better. Doubly so, in Harry's case, triply so if you count having to keep his time travel a secret as well, something that still hasn't sunk into Harry's mind all the way. It was quite possible he was the first time travelling vampire wizard in history.

The sun began to sink over the horizon, and Harry felt the grips of the infernal gas sphere loosening its hold over his curse. Removing himself from his underground tomb was easier than burying himself in the first place; apparition.

It was dark out. It always was. Harry hadn't seen the sun in decades, and had no plans to ever. He just hoped that Tom Riddle was alone. If not, oh well. Sacrifices would be made for the Greater Good.

The darkness wrapped around him better than any cloak, making him nearly invisible. But, to be on the safe side, he disillusioned himself as well. He ran up to the gates, not making a single sound, and hopped over the iron wall.

Completely silent and invisible, he bound up to the imposing castle. The outward appearance of the massive school had not changed any of the times he had seen it, be it 1942 or 2042. The walls were tall, but not unclimbable.

The front doors were out of the question, but he could go over the main castle walls as well, and take any of the inner tower doors, or even enter through a courtyard.

His fingers gripped onto the stone wall easily, unnaturally so. Then again, he was unnatural, and scaling the wall was easy, no magic required.

Harry wished he could have just apparated in, but the anti-apparation jinxes were very strong. No one alive or dead could get through, and he was no exception. That wasn't going to stop him though, as he just crossed into the castle proper through means of the south tower.

The inside of Hogwarts was much the same. The place was a time capsule, so full of history, both good and bad. Harry was hoping to soon add a piece of bad history to the castle. He was fairly confidant it wouldn't be the first assassination though, and definitely not the last.

Prowling through the halls, Harry was in his element. He passed by students and teachers alike, none of them even glancing in his directing. Stealth was imbued in every vampire. He made no sound as he walked, and if he hid in a shadow and remained perfectly still, no one would ever notice him. A perfect assassin. His need for a constant supply of blood, and his unchanging and irreversible nature is what made him far more dangerous than a werewolf.

The Ministry had every right to fear vampires. Harry was not the manipulating, killing machine that some of his brethren were, but the potential was there. Harry had to do what he had to do to survive, nothing more, nothing less.

Tom Riddle was not amongst any of the students he saw passing by. No one knew where he was when he listened into their thoughts, but that was most likely because they weren't keeping track of him. The school was quite large, and Tom was just probably not in any of the locations he passed.

Harry was unsure when Tom became a prefect, but he was thinking that if this was Tom's fifth year, which he was almost positive, than he should be one. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but it did mean that he could be patrolling the halls that night, and an easy target.

But, he had a hunch. Harry had a distinctive insight to Tom's past, as they had shared an involuntary mind link. He'd like to think that he had a unique perspective of Tom's life, and the only person to understand Tom better than Harry would be the future Dumbledore.

Tom was arrogant, especially so at fifteen, and it was only going to get worse. Tom thought he knew Hogwarts better than anyone else, that he knew of places that no one else would ever find. His arrogance would be his downfall. Being the heir of Salazar Slytherin, halfblood or not, had given him a sense of superiority.

And to Salazar's Chamber was where Harry headed. It was a shock to see that the second floor girl's loo was actually in use. Myrtle had not yet been killed and doomed to haunt the room.

There were other girls in the room though, but a simple stench charm took care of that. After a brief commotion, three witches sped out of the room and away from the smell.

The loo, like every other room in Hogwarts, was exactly the same as he remembered it. Although, to be fair, the plumbing is technically more modern now than it was when he attended the school as a kid. The floors were porcelain tiles, as were the fixtures, and painted metal made up the stalls. It wasn't so different than the normal muggle equivalent, as humans and magic users are biologically identical.

But Harry hadn't had to use a toilet in over fifty years.

After double checking to make sure there were no more girls in the room, he cast a powerful locking charm on the door. He then looked under the sink where he knew the entrance to the Chamber to be, and it was still there.

The little snake symbol was exactly where he remembered it to be. Harry briefly wondered if Tom was the one to put the mark on the sink, as it was a recent fixture. Harry whispered "_Open_" in Parseltongue, causing the door mechanism to unfold. The Parseltongue sounded harsh and guttural coming from his mouth, not smooth and serpentine at all. The language was very limited in use, and as such, he rarely employed it. But the gift would be with him forever, even if the vessel of its inception was long gone.

The sink folded back into itself to reveal the dank tunnel leading far beneath the castle and even farther beneath the lake. Cleaning it to be a respectable part of Hogwarts' history was certainly not on Tom's to-do list. The passageway leading towards the main chamber was not much better, although the slide down was much more manageable with night vision and vampiric grace.

No shed skin was lying around, unlike the future, but the place was still a mess. Dead rats and other animals lay strewn about the place, but there were footprints heading right up to the carved stone doors leading to the Chamber of Secrets.

Another whisper of "_Open_" in Parseltongue triggered the doors to open inward. Harry walked in with no preamble and glanced around the room.

Right in front of him stood the large head bust of Salazar Slytherin, gaunt and imposing in appearance. The stony façade looked every bit of one thousand years old, but there was no doubt of who it was, even if you had never seen a picture of the man.

Large cylindrical pillars lined every wall, as old as the rest of the room. Passageways could be seen in between a few of them, leading off into darker parts of the chamber. The room was fairly clean, probably due to the person currently occupying a desk sitting in the corner of the room.

Tom Riddle bore no likeness to Salazar, but that did not stop him from wrapping himself in his ancestor's legacy. The teenager had jumped out of his wooden chair upon hearing and seeing the doors open, and he had drawn his yew and phoenix feather wand. This Tom was not quite as impulsive as he would be in the future, as he did not attempt to curse Harry, yet.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Answer quickly!"

"I am here to kill you," Harry said ominously and truthfully. "People know what you have been doing. Do you think your blood so superior that you do not think there are consequences?"

"I don't know what you are talking about. But I will not be the one dying today!" Tom then spun around to face the giant statue of Slytherin. "_Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts' Four!_"

Harry watched as the mouth on the statue unfurled into a large diameter pipe. A deep rumbling sound, unrelated to the grinding stone door, could be heard coming from inside the pipe. Harry heard the Parseltongue coming from Tom's mouth, commanding the basilisk to kill him, but Harry doubted he could cancel the command. He wasn't Slytherin's heir.

Tom didn't wait for the Basilisk to slither out of its hole, he went on the offensive. It wasn't anything Harry couldn't handle, a mix of bone crushing hexes and flesh eating curses. Not typical Hogwarts fare at all though.

Red, brown, and blue curses splashed through the room, spelling trouble for anyone caught unawares. They were spells that spoke of an expanded repertoire of a Dark Wizard, but not of a future Dark Lord.

Harry was quick to avoid them, but not quick enough to give away his otherworldly nature. Carving a series of triangles in the air, Harry lead out with a focused ice lance, which Tom quickly countered with a flash boiling hex, and a gust charm to blast hot steam away.

The two spells gave Harry ample time to cast his next sequence. Harry whipped his wand laterally, pulling bricks out of the wall and propelling them at Tom. The fledgling Dark Lord pointed his wand at the ground, and with a quick word, forced it up into the air, creating a ramp and careening the bricks over his head. Wasting no motion, his wand movement flowed neatly into a follow up rupturing curse.

Blue magic arced at Harry, but he met it head on with a precise counterspell, causing the magic to explode into a shower of cyan dust. Harry shot his next spell straight through the cloud of magic to hide it, but Tom had enough sense to dodge out of the way. The spell flew over his head and hit the wall behind him.

Tom turned around to briefly look at the hole the spell caused. It was about two inches in diameter and he couldn't see the end. Harry knew that his strong puncturing spell had probably gone through a hundred feet of the stone.

Knowing his distraction was a mistake, Tom quickly turned around and cast a wide spray of poison, hoping that his spell choice would make up for his lack of accuracy.

It didn't.

Dodging backwards several feet, Harry whipped his wand in kind, sending out a wave of banishers. They connected with Tom, flipping him backwards and almost into the wall. The spell was invisible, and silent, and very hard to counter.

Tom recovered with a slight daze, transfiguring part of the room into a barricade. He hoped the defense would give him a few more seconds to recover. It was a good job for being so quick, but the stone was shattered nearly instantly by Harry's implosion hex. Bits of rock flew everywhere, but Tom was quick with a shield.

"_Crucio!"_ echoed out through the chamber, and the hellacious bolt of magic smashed into Harry's right side. Tom looked triumphant as he held the spell, his head barely visible through the cloud of stone dust, but his face quickly turned into one of disbelief when he saw that the torture curse didn't have the desired effect.

It barely had any effect at all.

Harry dodged to the side of a follow up Killing Curse, his cloak billowing out behind him as he sidestepped fluidly. He twirled his wand in a 'J' shape, and the brown lance of a stone pulverizing hex left his wand.

The trajectory was not very fast - it was more of a lob than a lance. Tom dove off to the side, and just in time. The stone floor where he had stood a second earlier had disintegrated in a ten foot diameter.

The future Lord Voldemort's eyes opened wide, and perhaps for the first time, he started to fear for his life. Harry knew that Tom was an extreme underdog. If, and only if, he realized Harry was a vampire, he may be able to exploit that weakness.

Tom got a second reprieve as the large form of the basilisk slid out from the mouth of the statue. The dark wizard regained his composure and ordered it. "Kill him! Kill him!"

The basilisk's tail whipped at Harry, but he was quick to jump over it. The room wasn't large enough to allow the fifty foot basilisk a lot of maneuverability. Tom had to be careful to not get caught by the rampaging basilisk himself. It would be far too easy to get accidently crushed.

Dodging back and forth, Harry evaded the Basilisk as it tried to crush his body. He tried his best to stay away from the head; it wasn't that he feared petrification, he feared being eaten. He wasn't sure what kind of effect basilisk venom would have on him, but it wouldn't be good.

As a vampire, he was very fast, agile, and nimble. He could run twice as fast as the fastest human, but that was still slower than some of the fastest predatory animals like cheetahs, and slower than most muggle machines. But he was quick enough to avoid being crushed by the basilisk, just. The basilisk was strong enough to crack the stone walls wherever it had slammed, and he did not wish to feel that power.

It was after a particularly fierce body slam that Harry noticed the Basilisk had finally gotten a good angle to charge at him with its head. Harry saw the gleam in Basilisk's eye, and the triumphant look in Tom's, before he felt the Basilisk petrifying glare wash over him.

The magic was strong, very strong, but ultimately wasted. Harry had no soul, no life to steal. The Basilisk glare did not affect a dead man. He quickly jumped high in the air, nearly to the ceiling, but he had to in order to avoid the Basilisk charging right into the wall. He paid a quick glance over at Tom, whose premature victory smile faded into disbelief once again.

That disbelief only heightened as Harry withdrew his sword and plunged it deep into the basilisks head. The blade twisted as he continued to fall to the ground along with the massive snake.

"No!" screamed Tom, as he hurled a variety of hexes at Harry. He avoided them all, just as he had avoided everything else thrown at him so far, be it basilisk or spell.

Rubble flew everywhere from the snake's death throes. Its tail lashed around, pulverizing anything unfortunate enough to get in its way. Tom had retreated far away from the thrashing snake, safe, but too far away to effectively combat Harry.

The snake stopped twitching after a minute, and that's when Harry continued his attack. He jumped high into the air, sword and wand still in his hands, right into the green jet of the Killing Curse.

Harry plummeted hard from the impact of the curse. It wasn't the spell itself that had any physical effect on him, changing his trajectory. It was the reaction of the spell rebelling against his cursed form. It could not kill him, instead the magic reacted violently and it hurled him downwards.

The fall didn't hurt him either, even if he did land on his back hard. He leaped up just as quickly as he fell, avoiding another spell, and charged at Tom. The future Dark Lord saved his surprise by casting another Killing Curse, followed by several incendiary spells. Harry briefly wondered if Tom had figured out that he was a vampire and was adapting, but the silver lance that followed was all the confirmation he needed.

Harry swerved off to the side, cutting into his hand in the process. Blood welled up from his self-inflicted wound, deep enough for a muggle to consider getting stitches. He flicked his hand out in front of him, sending the blood out in an arc. Then without a word or motion, the blood ignited.

The bloodfire splashed through Tom's hasty shield easily. The blood did not fuel the fire, it fueled the magic, and it was fire nearly as potent as Fiendfyre. Tom quickly shunned his burning robes off, trying to minimize physical damage, but leaving himself momentarily open to follow up attacks.

Not wanting to give Tom any more of a chance, Harry gripped his sword firmly, and hurled it like a throwing axe at the teen.

The sword moved much faster than Tom could move, and it sunk deeply right into Tom's chest. It didn't go straight in either, no, it looked like an animal gouged out a foot and a half of his torso. Tom dropped to the ground instantly. There wasn't even time for him to scream.

Blood seeped out of the grievous wound as the heart began to falter. Tom's ribcage was caved in, completely brutalized. Bone was showing, as were some of his innards - what was left of them.

Still, Harry wanted to be sure Tom Riddle was dead. He walked over to the fallen kid, lifted him up, bit into his neck and drank.

He did not want his memories, pitiful as they probably would be. No, he just wanted closure. Voldemort had stolen his blood and built a body from it in the future. Now he was returning the favor by taking his blood. It was as symbolic as it was tasty; blood is the universal life force, and Harry was the devourer.

The mutilated body dropped to the ground when he was done with it, completely spent. The blood tasted pretty good to Harry's unique taste buds. Tom was magically powerful, and that made the blood much more flavorful. But even more than any physical taste, it was the taste of victory that filled his mouth.

Metaphorically tired of the whole ordeal, Harry set Tom's remains on fire and watch them burn into ash, using the same blood magic. It was a fitting end, if not ironic. Tom's body met the same fate his would, should he ever be killed. The death of Voldemort was not nearly as satisfying as he hoped. He killed a young Tom Riddle, but he was not the same man that struck fear into every living being by name alone. Tom was not yet the great dueler, the destroyer of hope, and now he never would be.

Still, Harry could close a chapter in his history book now, having finally gotten revenge on one of the people who made his life what it is. One Dark Lord down, one more to go. Grindelwald's skill would be of a magnitude far above that of Tom Riddle's, and Harry looked forward to the challenge.

A grim smile appeared on Harry's face as he licked the remnants of blood off his lips, and walked his way back up to the surface. It's always darkest before the dawn, and there was plenty of killing left to do.

* * *

**_A/N _**_This is revision 2 of this story. I expanded upon some parts, subtracted from others, and tidied up some of the errors. Chapter 2 is in the planning stages right now. To see how my other stories are progressing, I recommend checking my profile every so often._


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